We report experiments on wind-blown sand that highlight a transition from saltation to collisional regime above a critical dimensionless mass flux or Shields number. The transition is first seen through the mass flow rate Q which deviates from a linear trend with the Shields number and seems to follow a quadratic law. Other physical evidences confirm the change of the transport properties. In particular, the particle velocity and the height of the transport layer increases with increasing Shields number in the collisional regime while the latter are invariant with the wind strength in the saltation regime. Discrete numerical simulations support the experimental findings and ascertain that mid-air collisions are responsible for the change of transport regime.

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International audienceThe present study is focused on the analysis of the mean wall friction velocity on a surface including roughness elements exposed to a turbulent boundary layer. These roughness elements represent non-erodible particles over an erodible surface of an agglomeration of granular material on industrial sites. A first study has proposed a formulation that describes the evolution of the friction velocity as a function of geometrical parameters and cover rate with different uniform roughness distributions. The present simulations deal with non-uniform distributions of particles with a random sampling of diameters, heights, positions and arrangements. The evolution (relative to geometrical parameters of the roughness elements) of the friction velocity for several non-uniform distributions of roughness elements was analysed by the equation proposed in the literature and compared to the results obtained with the numerical simulations. This comparison showed very good agreement. Thus, the formulation developed for uniform particles was found also to be valid for a larger spectrum of particles noted on industrial sites. The present work aims also to investigate in detail the fluid mechanics over several roughness particles. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd